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Smithsonian December 2015 smithsonian.com THE 2015 AMERICAN INGENUITY AWARDS EXCLUSIVE HIHISTSTORORIAIANSNS RRANANK THTHEE BEBESTST ANA DD WOWORSRSTT HIHISTST ORORICAL MOVIESVIESFALL OFAO TIMME LIGHTS! CAMERA! Bill Hader and Fred Armisen of “Documentary Now!” GENIUS! HOPE FOR ALZHEIMER’S A laboratory breakthrough for testing new treatments BROADWAY’S HIP-HOP SMASH In Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda sparks a revolution THE MAN WHO SAVED PLUTO Alan Stern’s out-of-this- world vision THE EMOTION MACHINE The promise of a computer that reads your mood THE ART OF MANIFEST DESTINY The eye-opening exhibition that spanned the nation PHOTOGRAPH BY BRINSON + BANKS WHO WEEE ARRRE IS WHATTT WE LLLEAVEEBBBBEHINNNDDD... 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BECAUSE SOMEDAY I’ll look back on all my saving and see a life well spent. $WWDFKPHQW Alert: Reminder: Retirement Fidelity Meeting Income Plan Today SAVE We’ll help you build a plan for WKHLQFRPH\RXōOOQHHGLQUHWLUHPHQW 7RJHWKHUZHōOOZRUNWRƓQGWKHULJKWEDODQFHWRJLYH\RX Ř$JXDUDQWHHG VWUHDPRILQFRPHLQUHWLUHPHQW Ř,QYHVWPHQWJURZWKSRWHQWLDOWRKHOSPHHW\RXUORQJWHUPQHHGV Ř7KHŴH[LELOLW\WRUHƓQH\RXUSODQRYHUWLPH Call a Fidelity Representative to talk DERXW\RXUUHWLUHPHQWLQFRPHQHHGVWRGD\ Every someday needs a planƬƦ )LGHOLW\FRPLQFRPH 866.533.0474 .HHSLQPLQGWKDWLQYHVWLQJLQYROYHVULVN7KHYDOXHRI\RXULQYHVWPHQWZLOOŴXFWXDWHRYHUWLPHDQG\RXPD\JDLQ or lose money. *Guarantees apply to certain insurance and annuity products and are subject to product terms, exclusions, limitations, and the insurer’s claims-paying ability and ƓQDQFLDOVWUHQJWK )LGHOLW\%URNHUDJH6HUYLFHV//&0HPEHU1<6(6,3&k)05//&$OOULJKWVUHVHUYHG Contents DECEMBER 2015 • Volume 46, Number 8 32 Bill Hader The 2015 American and Fred Armisen Ingenuity Awards The “SNL” alums slay it with love in their sendups of nonfi c- Pioneering researchers. tion fi lms in the TV series Visionary artists. Superhero “Documentary Now!” educators. These inspiring BY FRANZ LIDZ innovators from across the 38 Alan Stern country—some prominent, His New Horizons space some rising stars, but all mission is bringing us our fi rst- ever close-up views of Pluto improving our lives in some BY ELIZABETH QUILL fashion—are honored in our fourth annual special issue. 42 Françoise Mouly With Toon Books, her comics for kids, she’s putting the fun back in literacy and learning BY ELEANOR DAVIS 46 Rana el Kaliouby So long emoticons. The scien- tist is developing technology that can detect and read our expressions BY JERRY ADLER 52 Lin-Manuel Miranda The playwright, composer and actor has created a Broadway musical like no other in history BY JEFF MACGREGOR 58 Lilianna Zyszkowski The teenager has wowed Silicon Valley with a potentially life- saving invention, the PillMinder BY JESSICA PRESSLER Lin-Manuel Miranda, the star and creator of the smash 62 Theaster Gates Broadway musical Hamilton. The artist and activist is using art to revitalize Chicago’s beleaguered South Side Contributors 7 BY NATALIE MOORE Discussion 10 72 Zoe Crosher Phenomena 13 and Shamim Momin American Icon: Tabula Rosa Their 2,400-mile-long Art: Waste Land “Manifest Destiny Billboard Fast Forward: Mother & Child Project” conquers America Quakers with a Vengeance 18 BY MARGOT DOUGHERTY The author of In the Heart of the Sea, now a major motion picture, revisits 78 Rudolph Tanzi Nantucket’s whaling heyday and Doo Yeon Kim BY NATHANIEL PHILBRICK The duo’s “Alzheimer’s in a dish” is a breakthrough for National Treasure 70 testing new treatments BY NATALIE ANGIER ERIN PATRICE O’BRIEN ERIN PATRICE Ask Smithsonian 104 December 2015 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 3 Seeing the World in a New Light Remember the first time you saw the Eiffel Tower? Dreaming of the Taj Mahal? Smithsonian Journeys quarterly brings alive the pleasures of travel in stories that surprise, inform, and stimulate. Available for purchase at newsstands and smithsonian.com/journeysquarterly ADVERTISEMENT • Beautifully designed with more than 200 full-color illustrations, maps, and sidebars. • Ideal for anyone interested in exploration, navigation, mapping, science, history, space exploration, aeronautics, and technology. Time and Navigation tells the complete history of navigation—at sea, in the sky, in space, by satellite, and in everyday life. It reveals that while the history of navigation is one of constant change and innovation, it is also one of remarkable continuity. ORDER NOW! subscribe.smithsonianmag.com/timeandnav or 1-855-690-4499 Contributors Natalie Angier A Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and the author of several books, including the National Book Award fi nalist Woman: An Intimate Geography, Angier says she hadn’t realized how urgent the problem of Alzheimer’s disease is “on the verge of becom- ing.” She wants this profi le to “sound alarm Eleanor Davis bells” even as it highlights Rudolph E. Tanzi The award-winning and Doo Yeon Kim’s research breakthrough: a cartoonist and illustra- laboratory model of the disease in cell culture tor, based in Athens, form (“Memory Keepers,” p. 78). “The piece Georgia, fi rst collabo- was fun to work on, but it also made me very, rated with Françoise very anxious about our future. There is a little Mouly (p. 42) over a de- bit of hope,” she says. “Hope in a dish.” cade ago, when Davis Favorite invention: Spectacles was still in college. In addition to her solo ILLUSTRATIONS BY Julia Rothman work, Davis recently published a Toon Book with her husband, Drew Weing, and is half of the illustration team “Never Ever Even.” Birth control Brinson + Banks Nathaniel During the photo Philbrick shoot, Fred Armisen The best-selling au- and Bill Hader (p. 32) thor of In the Heart of “started improv-ing,” the Sea, the basis of a says David Banks. new movie, and Away “One would say a joke, Off Shore revisits the and the other would topic of Nantucket, Natalie Moore Jessica Pressler say a joke, they were his “adopted home” Erin Patrice The Chicago writer Pressler is a one-upping each (p. 18). “What made it O’Brien and WBEZ radio re- contributing editor at other,” adds Kendrick really interesting for O’Brien has photo- porter fi rst interviewed New York magazine Brinson. Brinson and me,” Philbrick says of graphed many celebri- Theaster Gates (p. 62) and a contributor to Banks’ collaboration the piece, “is the issue ties over the years, and four years ago. “I grew Elle and GQ. When seems less compet- of how society deals Lin-Manuel Miranda (p. up on the South Side she interviewed itive; the couple met with family and work. 52) is now one of her all- and I’m fascinated by 15-year-old Lilianna in college and helped It’s a problem we’re all time favorite subjects. his personal investment Zyszkowski (“Gadget each other for nearly struggling with today.” “He was that cool,” in making these neigh- Girl ,” p. 58) about her a decade before de- He is currently at O’Brien says. “It’s pretty borhoods better,” says inventions, Pressler ciding to work as a work on a new book, rare, actually.” She lives Moore. Her new book, was struck by the team in 2013. Their cli- Valiant Ambition: in Brooklyn, and her The South Side: A teenager’s maturity. ents include the New George Washington, work has appeared in Portrait of Chicago and “She was remarkably Yorker, Rolling Stone Benedict Arnold, the Atlantic, the New American Segregation, poised, articulate, and the New York and the Fate of the York Times, Time and is due out in March. self-possessed.” Times Magazine. American Revolution. other publications. Printing press Pizza in a cup VW Westfalia Centerboard Camera December 2015 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 7 Smithsonian Smithsonian.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Michael Caruso CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Molly Roberts SECRETARY ART DIRECTOR Maria G. Keehan COPY CHIEF Karen Larkins David J. Skorton DEPUTY EDITOR Terence Monmaney DIGITAL EDITOR, MUSEUMS Beth Py-Lieberman BOARD OF REGENTS DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Erik K. Washam CHANCELLOR Debra Rosenberg PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Brendan McCabe The Chief Justice of the United States SENIOR EDITORS Kathleen M. Burke, T. A. Frail, CHAIR ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Jeff Campagna Arik Gabbai, Elizabeth Quill Mr. John W. McCarter, Jr. DESIGNER Heather Palmateer NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT Ron Rosenbaum VICE CHAIR DIGITAL EDITOR, SMITHSONIAN.COM Brian Wolly STAFF REPORTER Katie Nodjimbadem Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson COPY EDITOR Jeanne Maglaty COLUMNISTS Amanda Foreman, Brian Greene, MEMBERS Sue Halpern, Bill McKibben, Clive Thompson ASSOCIATE WEB EDITORS Megan Gambino, The Vice President of the United States Victoria Jaggard CORRESPONDENTS Jeff MacGregor, Matthew Shaer, Hon.